The Heretic’s Wife (52 page)

[Richard Bayfield] being both a priest and a monk . . . fell to heresy and was abjured, and after that like a dog returning to his vomit and being fled over the sea, and sending from thence Tyndale’s heresies hither with many mischievous sorts of books . . . the monk and apostate was well and worthily burned in Smithfield.

—S
IR
T
HOMAS
M
ORE
ON THE BURNING OF
R
ICHARD
B
AYFIELD

F
or the next few months, through the long winter and much of the next year, the little band of translators, fortified by the letters of support John had brought back from England, worked diligently. The days and nights fell into a quiet routine built around his work.

Kate and John moved into the English House at Tyndale’s insistence, but Kate refused to give up her Bible classes. The studio had not been rented, so Catherine Massys agreed that the women should keep meeting there. Kate was delighted that their number was growing and wanted to share that delight with John, but somehow she didn’t think it wise to bring the subject up. He had only reluctantly agreed to the meetings when Kate protested having to move in with the Poyntzes. It simply was not safe to be anywhere else, he’d said, not with more and more fugitives fleeing England. Sooner or later
they were bound to run into someone like Stephen Vaughan, known to be back in Antwerp, who recognized John or even Kate.

Vaughan claimed to be no longer an agent of the king, but they didn’t fully trust him. He’d warned through an English merchant, with whom he’d established an uneasy friendship, that one of Tyndale’s distributors had been seized in England. George Constantine had broken easily under More’s weeks-long interrogation, giving out names of shipmen, printing houses, and the secret codes placed on the shipping crates of contraband freight. Vaughan claimed to be afraid for his own safety since Constantine had reportedly given his name as a sympathizer with the Antwerp refugees.

Even Tyndale went out less after being warned by the same merchant that the king had ordered Thomas Elyot, the new English ambassador to the imperial court, to seize the translator and bring him back to England. Tyndale had guarded his image carefully during the years he’d been in exile, but there were now many who would recognize him. He still ventured into the poorest sections of town to do his charity work, though less frequently. Sometimes John went with him, but Kate was never allowed.

Their discussions were many and lively over what this scripture might really mean in the strictest translation or whether the “poorest, unlearned plowman” in England might understand this word choice better than that word choice. On more than one occasion she bit back her opinions until she thought she would choke on them. She did not want to embarrass John. They were becoming more and more a closed society. She slipped quietly out on Friday mornings, hoping not to call attention to her leaving, lest they suddenly decide that her meetings posed too great a risk. They wouldn’t even allow her to carry copy to and from the printer’s, for fear she’d be followed.

When the days shortened, she began to dread the winter. She had less and less claim on John’s time. But Kate could not honestly say that her husband neglected her. He was filled with energy, and even in the poor privacy of the English House, when their chamber door was barred he showered her with affection and certainly passion enough to make a child—to make a houseful of children. The fault must lie within her, she thought.

At first light he always slipped from their bed to begin work early. On those cold mornings she would entreat him to come back to bed. “William says we should begin early to save the cost of candles,” he always reminded her. And then with a kiss upon her forehead, he said, “Go back to sleep, my
angel.” But she did not go back to sleep on some days. On Fridays and now on Tuesdays, she got up and dressed, slipping out through the chapel garden to go to the little studio apartment where the numbers of both women and children were growing. But she was ever mindful that she was not followed. John would never forgive her if she brought harm to his work or put his friend in danger.

Tidings from England grew ever more disturbing. With each new ship, frightened refugees brought stories of burnings. One of the victims especially weighed on her spirit. Richard Bayfield was a former Benedictine monk who had embraced reform and trafficked in both the Lutheran reformed materials and Tyndale’s books. Like others before him, who had been forced to abjure, he had fled to the Continent. She remembered the first time she’d met him. It was the summer before, and he was in a jolly mood, having just run a successful cargo in through the east coast, through Colchester and down into London right under the nose of the chancellor’s spies. He’d laughed and toasted the successful run with several merchants of the English House, and the translators had even abandoned their labors to join in the celebration. It seemed as though God truly smiled on their efforts.

But when Bayfield had come again in November he seemed a different man. This time the scene was somber. He’d come, he said, to report misfortune and failure. The ship had been seized at St. Katherine’s docks just downriver from the Tower. He had escaped being captured by dumping the contraband Bibles in the estuary when he spotted the tidewaiters below the bridge. Having once recanted, he’d said with shame, they could burn him without trial upon a second offense. Tyndale had told him not to worry about the Bibles, quietly suggesting that the printer could replace them but not a good man and that More must have a spy somewhere close if he’d known the destination of the shipment. Perhaps Bayfield should take a respite.

But Bayfield had shaken his head and said, “No. No respite. I have to atone for . . . the other.”

Kate knew what he meant, and she admired him for it. She thought of her brother and the sadness that had come upon him after he’d abjured. The shame she had felt for him. She wanted to remind Richard Bayfield that he need not, indeed could not, atone for his own sins. As a follower of Luther, surely he believed in the free forgiveness of sin through grace and not works. But she never got the chance to offer that comfort. At Easter, he’d been seized bringing contraband into Norfolk and summarily executed.

Three weeks later they got news of the burning of a London leather seller, by name of John Tewkesbury, for possession of Tyndale’s books. From that day forward, such was her husband’s anxiety for their well-being that she became a veritable prisoner in the English House.

“I might as well be in the Tower,” she said angrily when he forbade her to go out.

“I don’t think so, my angel.” He looked up from his work. “Here you have a very sympathetic gaoler,” he said, putting down his pen. “Come. We’ll take a turn behind the walled garden.”

“I do not wish to take a turn around the garden. I am not some child to be placated,” she said. “I know, John, how important your work is. I know, too, how hazardous it is. And trust me. I will not speak of your work here.”

“I do trust you, Kate. It’s not that. I fear for your safety. It is only a matter of time until your activities are discovered and censured. Inquiries will be made. More’s spies are everywhere.”

“The other women know me only as Kate. They do not even know your name. If, as you say, there is risk, then it is to me alone, and I have chosen to accept it. It is little enough. It is not some great contribution as you and Tyndale are making, but it is my contribution.” She thought of the woman in Leuven with the black eye, the Dora who would find a way. “I will do this, John. I will find a way. The women are counting on me.”

She put on her cloak and threw up her hood against the late spring chill, and then she kissed him. “I love you, John Frith,” she said. “Now, I am going to my meeting, and I will be back in time to sharpen your quills and refill your cider cup.”

He did not try to stop her.

Pleading heaviness in his chest, Sir Thomas More did not attend the king’s Christmas revels, though he was sure his absence would be marked. He simply could not bear to see the Boleyn woman flaunting her influence before the court, nor could he bear the sight of smug Thomas Cromwell, growing fat on the king’s favor. He spent those nights instead closeted with his latest guest in the porter’s lodge—happier progress there. After the “tree of troth” and a few days in the stocks had softened his resolve, the prisoner Constantine had leaked information like a rusty bucket. Tonight the chancellor had instructed the porter to allow his escape. A rodent scurrying to his vermin’s nest, he would be followed as he made his way back to Antwerp.

“You say Master Constantine has gone over the wall?”

The porter grinned. “Aye, my lord, I fear I was negligent.”

“Well done, Barnabas. But we’d best mend the stocks, and lock up well. Our prisoner might want back in,” Sir Thomas joked. Then his tone shifted. “We’ll need the lodge readily enough. We’re entertaining a barrister of the Middle Temple tonight, by name of Bainham. Methinks lawyer Bainham wants instruction in the ways of the true faith. It is not near so broad as he would have it be. He has written that ‘if a Jew, Turk, or Saracen do trust in God, then he is a good Christian man.’ Can you imagine that, Barnabas? A good Christian who would pray with Jews and Turks and Saracens!”

Barnabas shook his head in disbelief. “Is he to be persuaded with argument first, my lord, or interrogation?” he asked.

“Argument and prayer. We may be able to save his soul without harming his body. But he has gone far to the other side, I fear. He questions the truth of the Eucharist.” He groped within the deep pocket of his voluminous robe and held out a rolled document. “Here is a writ for his arrest. Tell the sergeant at arms if he cannot find him in chambers at the Middle Temple, to look in the bed of his new wife.”

“He is newly married then?” The porter’s expression of dismay suggested that his enthusiasm for the interrogation was waning.

“Hold to the faith, man. The fact that he is newly married counts for naught. Don’t waste your sympathy. His new bride is not some sweet innocent learning the pleasures of love from her new husband. She is the widow of a notorious heretic, a writer of materials almost as injurious to Holy Church as Tyndale’s own.”

The porter took the writ and Sir Thomas turned back toward the main house. “I shall be in my study. Call me when our guest arrives. No matter the hour.”

But when he entered his hall, Sir Thomas went to his study only long enough to retrieve the little knotted rope from its resting place. Then he turned toward the chapel. It was long after midnight by the time he lit the lamps in his study and began to write.

The next morning, Meg Roper knocked tentatively at her father’s study door.

“Who is it?” The voice was sharp, impatient. Its unfamiliar tenor made her think at first that some other man sat at her father’s desk.

“It’s Margaret, Father. I’ve brought your shirts.”

“Come in,” he said. Then nodding at the bundle she carried, “Put it on that chair beneath the window. There are two more wadded up beneath the stool.”

She retrieved the soiled shirts, noticing that one of them was still damp with sweat and stiffened blood, noticing, too, how thin he had become and how gray his hair and skin, as though all were of one color. She lingered, not knowing how to begin, hoping he would invite her to stay. He did not, but turned his attention to the polemic he was writing. She could tell by the furious way his hand moved the pen, the scowl on his brow, that it was another of the hate-filled answers to one of Luther’s or Tyndale’s works. Why did these men have to carry on such a public argument? Why couldn’t they exchange their vitriol in private and spare other souls the pain of listening?

He was so absorbed he didn’t appear to be aware that she was still there, until he mumbled pointedly, without looking up, “Was there something else, Margaret?”

“One of the shirts, Father. There was so much blood, I couldn’t wash it clean. Was that all your blood?”

He put down his pen then and looked up at her, sighing. “Well, whose else would it be?”